1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a label dispenser for a postage meter machine including a storage container, a withdrawal roller, and a pretensioned spring, which maintains the dispenser in its rest position.
2. Brief Description of the Background of the Invention Including Prior Art
A postage meter machine is known from R. Gruunig, "Die Frankiermaschine Hasler Mailmaster," (The Postage Meter Machine Hasler Mailmaster), Hasler Mitteilungen 37 (1978) 1, 1-7, which postage meter machine is equipped with a strip dispenser. This strip dispenser delivers by manual lever pressure in each case a self-adhesive label to the franking device of the machine, which furnishes the label with a post-office-valid value impression and, possibly, with a date as well as with an advertising stamp. The label serves then for providing postage to a piece of mail, for example, a small parcel. An English description of the Hasler Mailmaster F 204 Franking Machine is given in Hasler Review, Volume 11, No. 1,
The strip dispenser can comprise about one hundred labels in its removable container. The lever, to be operated manually, is furnished with a gear rack. The gear rack engages a gear wheel. This gear wheel, together with a pull-off roller, is disposed on an axis, where the pull-off roller is supported via a free-wheeling bearing.
The pull-off roller is rotated upon actuation of the lever via the gear rack, the gear wheel, and the free-wheeling bearing. The label resting at the pull-off roller is thereby drawn out so far downwardly until it is gripped by the transport roller of the franking machine and can be transported off. During the transporting off, the free-wheeling bearing releases the motion of the pull-off roller such that the label can move freely. A restoring spring returns the lever into its starting position.
The recited strip dispenser is employed today worldwide in franking machines of the type Hasler Mailmaster, and dispenses labels, which can be adapted in size and design to comply with the different post office regulations and to suit different requirements. The strip dispenser is however associated with the disadvantage, that it is not sufficiently suitable for shorter labels, i.e. that these cannot be withdrawn from the container with adequate reliability.